Faithfully Following: Belize Trip, Part 2

We (finally) made it to Pastor Marcus' house late Monday evening. I got a kick out of Dan's directions which were, and I quote, "turn at the row of broken-down buses and then turn at the water pump."
They were excited to see us and his wife, Ambrosia, and their daughters quickly made a dinner of rice and beans for us. Hey, that's right up our Cajun alley! Their house is part thatch-roof, part concrete block and while it has water, it doesn't have electricity on it yet. We ate by kerosene lamp and made our way back to the car by solar-powered flashlight. Marcus took us to a family member's "hotel" where we would be staying for the night.

"Bol's Hilltop Hotel" was basically an upper level of plywood-partitioned rooms with twin beds in each room. A double bed room meant you got 2 beds instead of one, lol. Think "I Love Lucy" style.

I'll be honest here and say that the overall stress of the day and the condition of our accomodations made me, um, a wee bit emotional. I shed a few tears as we got ready for bed & I faced my own glaring American way of thinking. Dan prayed for my sanity and for me to have a fresh perspective the next morning. Whew! Sometimes all you need is a good night's sleep!
Tuesday morning, we woke up to the cool of the mountain air and to a wonderful view of the little village we were in.
When we joined Pastor Marcus & his family for breakfast, we gave him the money that had been raised by a church here in TX, and he was excited about going to get the materials he needed to keep construction going on their new church building. Right now, he pastors his church (consisting of about 5-6 families) from his house, which is fine, but their goal is to build a church shelter that can also function as a Hurricane Shelter in case the town needs it.
So, we loaded up Marcus and his family & went about 50 minutes away to a town called Punta Gorda to go order/buy materials. It was also a scouting mission for us because "PG" is the closest town that we can get a P.O. Box in. :-/ That will take some getting used to!

On the way there, we stopped and the guys bought several planks of wood for the church building. Since we were in a little Honda CRV, the girls and I kind of looked around at each other like, um, how are we gonna get these home? Then, Dan came back to the car and said, "Marcus is going to call the 12 o'clock bus and get it to stop and pick up the wood for us." Ha! So, the local bus came by, picked up the wood and dropped it off in front of the church building. How funny is that?

We made it into PG, ate lunch at a small local restaurant and stopped by the post office before heading back to San Antonio. That night, I helped the girls roll out handmade tortillas for dinner. After such an eventful day, we found conking out at the "Hilltop" a bit easier that night! :-)